Field
The present invention relates to a fuel cell system.
Related Art
A technique described in JP 2015-90779A with regard to a fuel cell system continues power generation by a fuel cell at a system stop time until the amount of water included in the fuel cell is reduced to a predetermined level or below. This suppresses the fuel cell from being frozen during suspension of the system.
The fuel cell system may be stopped immediately without performing a process that is ordinarily performed at the system stop time (hereinafter referred to as ordinary stop process) when an emergency stop of the system is required by some cause, for example, in the case where a fuel lid for supplying a fuel gas is opened or in the case where a component is overheated to or above a predetermined temperature. The ordinary stop process includes, for example, a water drainage process that discharges water included in the fuel cell and a cathode sealing process that suppresses invasion of the air into a cathode in order to suppress deterioration of a catalyst in the fuel cell.
Some of the causes of such an emergency stop may be eliminated after elapse of a predetermined time period. For example, when opening of the fuel lid is the cause of an emergency stop, closing the fuel lid eliminates the cause of the emergency stop. In another example, when overheat of the component to or above the predetermined temperature is the cause of an emergency stop, decreasing the temperature of the component below the predetermined temperature eliminates the cause of the emergency stop. After elimination of the cause of the emergency stop, it is preferable that the fuel cell system performs the ordinary stop process that is not performed at the time of an emergency stop. A configuration of monitoring whether the cause of an emergency stop is eliminated after the emergency stop to perform the ordinary stop process, however, needs to continuously supply electric power to the component required for monitoring. This results in increasing the power consumption.